How do you say "The Swiss do it better"

Question

How do you say "The Swiss do it better" in German?

In the sense of a magazine title or similar.

Possibly a little bit arrogant. ;)

Ricola popularized "Und wer hat's erfunden? Die Schweizer." but they might own a trademark so better not use that. ;) — musiKk, Jun 07 '11 at 08:12

score 10 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 07 '11 at 08:43

10

The direct translation would be "Die Schweizer machen's besser".

If it's supposed to be a bit more formal, you could leave out the contraction and write "Die Schweizer machen es besser".

edited Jun 07 '11 at 08:43

RegDwight

answered Jun 07 '11 at 08:11

Jan

danke! now my project title makes sense! – Will Jun 07 '11 at 14:10
Da nich' für, wie man hier oben sagt :-) – Jan Jun 07 '11 at 14:31
machens instead of machen's – Michael Oct 02 '12 at 19:56
@Michael: Please elaborate. I believe "machen's" is correct... – Jan Oct 03 '12 at 16:26
1

The official german spelling rules say an apostrophe is (in this case) allowed for „Wörter mit Auslassungen, die ohne Kennzeichnung schwer lesbar oder missverständlich sind“ (§96) and you can use an apostrophe „wenn Wörter gesprochener Sprache mit Auslassungen bei schriftlicher Wiedergabe undurchsichtig sind“ (§97). So I guess both versions are correct depending on the construction of the rules. Btw., in writing I would prefer the long version machen es. – Michael Oct 03 '12 at 17:16
@moose: keep in mind that it's Schweiz, not Schweitz - and accordingly the word for the inhabitants is Schweizer, unlike the last name of a certain person: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Schweitzer – 0xC0000022L Feb 14 '13 at 17:22
@0xC0000022L: Thanks, it looked wrong, but I didn't see the mistake. – Martin Thoma Feb 14 '13 at 18:15
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiotenapostroph#Das_falsche_Auslassungszeichen - I would prefer "machens" even in writing if you stick with "Die Schweizer machens besser.". If you want to be more formal, I'd say "Das wird von den Schweizern besser gemacht." – Martin Thoma Feb 14 '13 at 18:16

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 14 '13 at 07:30

4

In addition to the answer of @Jan, you could also use the following:

Die Schweizer könnens besser.

This might be more accurate if you're talking about ability of doing something, whereas Jan's version is more about how something is done.

answered Feb 14 '13 at 07:30

Lukas

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 05 '13 at 20:04

1

If you want to do this in Swiss German (which is seen more often in print lately, or so it seems to me) you might try

D'Schwitzar machods bessar.

although to my ear it would be more colloquial to say

D'Schwitzar koennads bessar.

or a translation of the usage mentioned above:

Wer had das arfunda? D' Schwitzar.

answered Feb 05 '13 at 20:04

Rosina Lippi

I would generally discourage the usage of swiss-german in written sentences, because there is no grammar, it is a purely spoken dialect. Also I would not write the examples, as they appear above, they look wrong to me as swiss person... – Lukas Feb 14 '13 at 07:23
My screen went blank when I scrolled down to this answer. What does it say? – 0xC0000022L Feb 14 '13 at 17:23

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 12 '13 at 20:02

0

Für einen "arroganten" Magazintitel würde ich sagen

Schweiz ist besser

Allerdings ist das kein gutes Deutsch, macht aber eine gute Überschrift :-)

answered Feb 12 '13 at 20:02

Steffen Roller

1

Vornehm ausgedrückt: das ist eine sehr freie Übersetzung. – Hackworth Feb 12 '13 at 20:11

4 Answers4